January 13, 2022
REST IN PEACE
William Henry DuBay “Bill”, 87, passed away peacefully on January 13, 2022 in St. Paul’s Hospital in Hong Kong (his winter home). Bill was born on December 24, 1934 to John Louis and Viola DuBay in Long Beach, California. He attended public schools in Long Beach up until the ninth grade. He started his Seminary studies to be a priest at Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary. He then continued his studies at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, CA. He was an ordained Catholic Priest in 1960.
His first Parish assignment was to Saint Alberts in 1964 where he took up his cause to speak out against racism in the Los Angeles Diocese. He wrote and published his first book: The Human Church in 1966. He was put on suspension from the church in 1968 during which time he met a young divorcee with four children by the name of Mary Ellen Wall. A year later, they had gotten married and had a baby boy named Alfred in the fall of 1969.
By 1972 he and Mary Ellen had separated, and later divorced in 1976. After the divorce he moved to Seattle, Washington where he administered a halfway house for convicts getting out of incarceration. From there he moved to Alaska with his then partner, Phillip. While in Alaska he started a homestead on the Kenai Peninsula near the little town on Ninilchik. Later he worked for the governor’s office where he was a mediator for Native Alaskans when making negotiations with the oil companies over land rights.
He later returned to California in 1988 where he cared for his elderly mother Viola. He became a technical writer and started his own consulting business, Impact Information. Over time he wrote three more books, Gay Identity, Plain Language and Readability. He moved back to Washington in 2010, to a little cabin on the shore of Whidbey Island. It was there he wrote his fifth and final book, The Priest and the Cardinal.
Bill also enjoyed being a grandfather to his twin granddaughters and often split his time between his cabin and traveling to Hong Kong to be with his partner, Kin Man Lee whom he met in 1999, and the Lee family.
Bill is survived by his partner, Kin Man Lee; son, Alfred (Leah) DuBay; step-children, William, Alison, Megan, and Michael; sister, Mary Ann Smith; granddaughters, Lily and Sophie DuBay; nieces, Lisa, Lori, Danielle and Jennifer; and nephew, Todd.
He is preceded in death by his parents, John Louis and Viola DuBay; and his brother, John.
He will always be remembered for his intelligence, love of family, and for always standing up for what he believed in; and any time we hear the word: “LISTEN!”. He will be greatly missed.
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Renegade priest in 1960s Los Angeles: what ever happened to William Dubay?
AMERICA MAGAZINE
https://www.americamagazine.org/all-things/2016/09/29/what-ever-happened-father-william-dubay/